Just wanted to remind everyone that we are participating in The Great BC Shakeout again, but this year we're going to incorporate the exercise into our Monday night net on Oct. 21st at 19:00 (we'll basically be following the regular net procedures). Everyone is invited to join us on the RBY VHF/UHF repeater.

There will be a practice fox hunt at Confederation Park, Burnaby, June 9, 10:00 AM. Meet at the parking lot off of Beta Avenue, North of Hastings. Equipment is available to loan. A license is not required (receive only).

The results are in for the 2012 Canada Day contest. A number of us operated as Multi Transmitter Multi Operator class (MOMT) under the special event callsign CG7CWPC during the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the C.W. Parker Carousel here in Burnaby. A few of us were even first-time contesters. We all had a lot of fun participating and as Eric, VE7EES, says "we are not last" 😉 Yeah us!

Today we participated in our first Great BC ShakeOut exercise. A big Thank You to everyone who took the time to check-in with us and the other amateur radio groups.

We had 23 check-ins plus Pete and myself for a total of 25 participants. Pretty impressive numbers for a Thursday in the middle of the morning.

We heard from operators in Burnaby, New Westminster, Surrey, Vancouver, the North Shore, Richmond, Delta, Tsawwassen, and Langley including contacts from the Surrey RCMP and Vancouver EOC radio rooms and Delta's emergency radio team. More than half of the stations reporting in were using alternate power (batteries).

Some of the operators who checked-in with us were also able to check in with the other Lower Mainland radio groups and let them know that we were active on the RBY repeater and I think that certainly helped with our numbers today.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the VHF and UHF repeaters linked as I had hoped and that is now the first 'To Do' on my list of preparations.

During a real quake we won't have the luxury of advanced warning and being able to look things up on the web ... we'll need to know ahead of time where to find each other. It was reassuring that so many lower mainland operators knew how to connect with us. We'll be continuing to work on our emergency plan and will let everyone know what that plan is.

We're still working out a few of the details for our Great BC ShakeOut drill this Thursday, but the important part to remember is to:

do your own drill first, then

check-in to our net on the RBY VHF repeater (145.350 with a tone of 127.3) starting at 10:30am

The net will last approx. 1 to 1.5 hours (until 11:30 to 12noon) depending on how many check-ins we get and how many other radio groups we're able to connect with (I'll be asking for a few of the people who check in with us to switch frequencies and make contact with another of the participating radio groups).

I know a lot of folks will be in the middle of their work day so we'll try to get you checked-in and back to work as quickly as possible. Please don't feel you need to tune in right at 10:30 or stay on frequency during the entire exercise.

I'll be heading up the net control team for this exercise and am looking for one or two others who will have time to spend an extended amount of time on the radio to share net control duties.

Please pass this information along to other radio operators in the area and encourage them to check-in with us as well.